Smart

He woke up the next morning to nothing. There wasn't anyone cheering or crying or cleaning or doing anything weird, which was weird in itself, because he usually woke up to some kind of oddity even before the whole magic mess went down. The silence frightened him so much that when he first blinked his eyes open to his plain, white ceiling, his shut them up tight once more and grabbed the pillow his hands were already on due to his weird sleeping position.

(Morning, Ash,) Pikachu said, nosing his cheek. (It's not that bad today. I promise it's not anything scary.)

Although he didn't know what she said, he could hear the comforting tone (and the very cold nose) and sat up, rubbing his sleepy eyes. Bending over the bed to see how she would surprise him today, he found nothing out of the ordinary. She had her hair loose for sleeping, snoring lightly, and from the little bit of her shoulder he could see she seemed to be wearing one of her typical yellow outfits. It couldn't be that everything was back to normal, could it? Though she wasn't dumb, he wouldn't use smart as the perfect would to describe Misty.

"Has she gotten up yet?" he asked Pikachu, who shook her head. "So we won't know if there's anything weird going on until then."

At Ash's first question she had twitched her toe; when he continued to talk she yawned and twitched and blinked her eyes open. A stretch or two and up she sat, her left hand rubbing at her eyes while her right reached at the front of her shirt to pull out a pair of slim, wire framed glasses. They weren't ridiculously thick, but enough so that they obviously not reading glasses. Her hair frizzed more than usual, poking up a bit, and her face was a little dirtier with a complexion that left a bit to be desired. A few pimples dotted her chin and forehead, though they weren't too noticeable and definitely couldn't have been worse. The yellow shoulder he saw turned out to be a yellow t-shirt a little too big, matched only by the too big jeans she wore.

"I get it. You're a nerd," he said out loud, which was something he hadn't quite intended to do.

She looked up at him, focusing on his face, then nodded. "I get it. You're an ass."

"Sorry, I didn't-"

"Doesn't matter if you didn't mean to, you did it. Don't know what provoked you into it today. I haven't even gotten out anything like RPG's or turn-based game play or Marvel comics or scientific research." She stood up abruptly and shook her head condescendingly his way. "I've told you a million times before and I'll tell you a million times again: Ash Ketchum, when you've got an IQ that lets you into public schools, you're allowed to insult me. Until then you're just another test subject."

He gawked, repeating, "Test subject?"

"Yeah, test subject." Her eyes lit up and she put a forefinger in the air, like she had just had a jinkies moment. "That reminds me, Ash, there were a couple of things I've been wanting to experiment about with pokémon breeding, and the Professor already gave me some of his books to read up on and some test tubes filled with pheromones, but I was wondering if you'd let me borrow Pikachu for a while so she could tell me which ones smells best to her."

"Pikachu?" He turned his head to her, and she gave a brief nod, leaping over to Misty's shoulder. "She's alright with it, so I don't care. Just be careful with her."

"I will. I might need you later, too," she said distantly, making her way to the door. "There's a few things I need a human for and, well, I'm not exactly going to use them on me, am I? That's what I have friends like you for."

There wasn't a giggle to show she was joking, and he wasn't quite sure she was. So he swung out of bed, disappointed at being companionless for the day and ran off to find Brock, only pausing a moment to make sure that the stain still wasn't there. It wasn't, which meant he still had his proof, but it also meant that the proof of that memory was still missing. Maybe it had never happened, and he had never really discovered Misty as a girl that night. Maybe that was all in his head, something warped by the same thing manipulating Brock and Dawn and Misty's memory.

He had to hope that it wouldn't work out that way, that when he found the answer that wouldn't be it, and off he went in search of Brock. He found him in the kitchen, eating a delicious smelling breakfast. Ash wasn't all too hungry, but he ate with him anyway. Dawn was already done and out doing her contest practice while Delia watched and clapped along. Misty was nowhere to be found. There was a brief conversation with Brock, followed with him dragging the other boy up to his room to point out the empty spot. Ash asked if Brock believed him now, and he nodded, this time bending forward a bit as if the stain would suddenly appear.

After he was positive it was missing, they had the conversation they had had for the last few days. Brock offered several obvious ways to correct the problem, and Ash objected even though he hadn't really tried them. This time, though, Brock continued, offering a lot of strange new ways he could try, though none of them made much sense. It was still nice to see him thinking, and Ash couldn't help but wonder if maybe the smarter Misty had affected his friends.

There was another brief argument, once again Brock was requesting that he tell Misty he liked her the way she was, and wishing her back would be the best option, and Ash argued that he didn't want the real her back. Brock did put up a better case that time, but there was no use arguing with someone who refused to use any logic (and Ash was extremely against logic), and the two decided to resumed the conversation after a quick break, a break best spent watching Dawn practice.

But that could only last for so long, and when his family grew exhausted and retired to the living room he decided to avoid another conversation with Brock and went instead to get something to drink.

He didn't know why his throat was so dry, but he knew what he wanted to drink. His first choice was a strong shot of liquor, but as his mother told him never to drink away pain (that's how good men ended up doing bad things), he opted for something softer – grape juice. He had a vague idea of why he was choosing that. It wasn't because the purple color made a nice background against the growlithe painted onto the clear glass cup, that was for sure. The red and purple clashed terribly and made the painting nearly fade away. It wasn't because it tasted good either, because the very first sip tasted so sweet he almost gagged at it.

Still, he kept it in hand and jogged up the stairs, careful not to spill a drop. An hour alone would be a nice break from his friends and mother, and a nice break from Misty's newfound multiple personality disorder and his room would be the perfect place. Pikachu was probably curled up there about this time. The mouse always liked to take a nap in the afternoon, whether on his shoulder or some nice place, though he hadn't given her much of a chance the past few days. Maybe he could lay down with her and talk a few more things out; after all, there were certain things he'd like to talk about in private.

The door swung open and was almost closed all the way when it startled the redhead inside. That startled girl gave a gasp, which caused Ash to stop closing the door, leaving a Pikachu sized way out but decent visual coverage and soundproof shielding.

Though surprised, she hadn't taken the pencil she had been gnawing on out of her mouth, making her look even sillier than she did with just the glasses. Pikachu was laying on the desk Misty was sitting at, cautiously sniffing one of the special test tubes that was laying on its side. A moment later she had jumped to her feet, casting the pencil aside and shuffling to pick everything up, a blush painted across her cheeks.

"You don't have to go," he said awkwardly. "I was just looking for a place to be alone for a while. Uh, maybe I'd take a nap with Pikachu or something, but I can just go crash on the couch or…my mom probably wouldn't mind if I used her bed. You can just continue doing whatever you were doing. It's cool. So, I'll just…" He pointed at the door.

She cleared her throat and picked up a book or two. "Yeah, uh. Listen, Ash, you don't have to. I'm mostly done with my research on everything and it seems that your Pikachu is undoubtedly a heterosexual female and she's more attracted to raichus than pikachus, which is interesting and apparently evolved forms are more likely to get mates than unevolved pokémon so…um, I'll be going then."

Neither moved, each looking to the door then back to each other, and the tension mounting in the room wasn't making the situation much better. It didn't help that Ash was completely baffled as to why there was tension. He hadn't walked in on her smelling his pillow or anything, she was fully dressed and doing something that she always did. They only thing that could have made it uncomfortable was whatever she was talking about before he came in. She was the one blushing and nervous, he was only reacting to it.

"Didn't you say you needed a human for something? I'm free if you still need one."

"I don't." She laughed lightly. "I've gotten everything I need. The human research was optional and, you know, I'm not even sure there's a purpose to it. The pokémon research is much more intriguing and it'd be better to have a male and female test subjects. It's not as effective if I only have you, and you've never been that great a test subject anyway, Ash. Half the time you just try to screw up all my results."

"I won't this time," he promised quickly.

(She needs help,) Pikachu encouraged. (She needs a lot of help. The kind of help you two should be alone for and play very loud music to drown out any sound you might make. And lock the doors. I'll leave, so you don't have to be uncomfortable.)

"Pikachu!" Misty gasped.

"You can understand her?"

"Of course, I've been able to understand her for years without a problem. It only took a few months for me to figure it out. I do have an exceptionally high IQ, you know." The blush was still on her cheeks and only darkening as she continued to speak. "She says…she says that I need help, which I don't. The experiment is done with and I don't even know why I'm so concerned over the stupid stuff. I almost never care about mating habits. It's probably because it's spring time."

"Spring?"

"Mmm." She nodded, relaxing enough to begin stacking the books neatly on the desk. "Spring. It's the time when most babies are born, because there's plenty of food and they have time to grow and build immune systems before the hot summer rolls in. Since humans mate all year around and you start seeing babies everywhere and it's just nice enough to make you want to have some sort of romantic fantasy. It's only natural to have romantic fantasies. That was redundant. Damn. I'm terrible at this."

He cocked his head to the side, watching her carefully. "Talking?"

"No, all this romance crap. It's too complicated, too many variables. It's too hard to experiment and test with. I mean, immune systems, pheromones, mental capabilities, physical capabilities, time in the menstruation cycle, age, gender, social standing, the way you were raised all plays a factor! There's puzzle pieces, of course, like everything else, but there's so many little components of it that make it damn near impossible to figure anything out! At least with pokémon it's much simpler. They just want to get knocked up, mostly, and they're always up for sex when they're stressed. It's our society that makes it so impossible to-"

With a shake of her head and a harder blush, she cut herself off and began fixing up the test tubes. "You're not being careful with your grape juice. Put it on the counter so you don't drop it and stain the carpet, you klutz. I'm going to leave all the stuff here because I'm too…too busy to take it all back to Oak's at the moment and I need you to be careful with it. Don't break it like you did the DNA Scanner last year. I had to work for ages to pay that one off."

He moved fast, setting the grape juice on the desk and grabbing her arm, keeping her from leaving and forcing her to look up at him. "You can understand Pikachu. You can…you know what she says. So if she gave you a really complicated explanation that I could never, ever understand in a million kabillion years because I'm not good at that stuff, you could translate for her and give it to me? That's what you're saying."

She shook him off. "Of course, you moron. I've done that for you a million times. I can't do it if she isn't here, though."

He let his hands fall to the side and spun around. Sure enough, the mouse had scampered off while they were talking, hoping to give them some alone time. He didn't want alone time, because he had just solved a rather inconvenient problem. He doubted any other Misty he could come up with would have the skill, so he had to do it today before the chance slipped through his fingers. All he had to do was walk a few steps out the door, and call for Pikachu. She'd know right away nothing would happen and the problem would be solved. Unfortunately, he was a bit paralyzed at the fact that he was alone in a room with Misty, with the door almost closed.

Now, he knew what happened when you were with a girl and the door was closed, but wasn't quite sure what to do with a Misty when the door was almost closed.

"She isn't here," he repeated.

"No. She isn't. She left me so I could be alone with your stupid…" She stiffened, blushed, and turned her gaze to the floor. "I don't know what to do with myself for the rest of today. I don't have any more tests to do. I figured this would take longer, but without two human subjects I'm not going to get that half done. I suppose I could always ask Dawn and Brock, but Brock isn't so willing after the last incident and Dawn's so busy training. I could walk down to the lab, I guess. Professor Oak wouldn't mind giving me more work to do. If all else fails I could do research on the internet."

He chuckled, bringing a hand to rub at the back of his neck. "You really are smart, huh?"

That brought her head back up and dropped her mouth wide open. "You…you called me smart. You're never done that before. You were always calling me a nerd or a geek but you never said anything that would be a…well, a compliment. Not towards my intelligence anyways. A few times I may have gotten a look that said I was pretty, but I don't care about that. I mean, it's always nice to hear but it's not that nice if that's all someone likes about you, or it's the final bit about you that makes them decide you're decent enough to date. I mean, they should be able to date you whether you're in bad clothes or good clothes or with or without makeup, right?"

"Mom always told me that if you cared about someone, it's not supposed to matter what's on the outside. You shouldn't judge anyone on the outside, like…" He paused for a moment to considered, then beamed when he thought of his perfect example. "Like Gary! He looks nice but he's really a jerk."

"Maybe I should test that out. See if all those makeover shows are doing it wrong," she said, more to herself than to him.

Her stance changed, just a bit. She became tighter, twitchier, shifting from one foot to another while her hands darted about one another. Two steps and she had gotten in front of him, his back to the desk, just a step or two away. She was close enough that he could see her eyes behind the glasses and noted that they were much bluer today than usual. He didn't feel like it was a very important deduction, but he noticed these things. He also noticed that she didn't have freckles, which was pretty weird considering she was a very light skinned redhead who spent a lot of time in the sun.

"So, Ash, would you like to test it?" she asked.

"Test what?"

She swallowed. "It's a simple test. You tell me if you think I'm better girlfriend material by looking at my face with and without my glasses. Everyone's told me a hundred times I look better without them, so…as long as you ignore the rest of me, it should be a fairly simple test. There's no commitment or anything, you don't have to date me. You just have to tell me…if you were looking for a girlfriend, would you be more likely to ask me out like this," she gestured to her face, "or like this," and she tugged her glasses off.

"I feel like I'm in an eye exam," he muttered. "One or two? A or B? And I never know for sure when those two points are on top of each other. If I can read the bottom row, why can't they just let me leave?"

"One more time, that's it. And pay attention, for Mew's sake. A," once more she gestured to her face, which was becoming redder by the second, "or B?"

She pulled her glasses from her face, cocked her head to the side and pressed her lips to his. He really hadn't been expecting that, and could only think disturbingly calm, logical thoughts for quite a while, like he usually did under stress. He noted that kissing made his heart beat awful fast and made him feel like he was getting his very first pokémon again. He noted that Misty had her eyes closed, and he probably looked silly with them open. He noted that her lips were very weird feeling, and didn't feel like velvet but more like softer, wetter skin, only a little different, which was nice, because he didn't really like velvet anyway. He also noted that he had no idea what he was doing, but he noted that so often that it really only became something notable if he actually did have an idea of what he was doing, because he tended to wander around life without a clue.

The important thing was that his hand had slid back and knocked over the grape juice, spilling it in the exact same spot it had all those years ago.

She pulled away, swallowing again. "Sorry. I wanted to try that."

"That's alright," he said, surprisingly calm about it all. "Though I think you look better without the glasses, and I like you better without them. I can see your eyes better, which is important, because sometimes when you're really upset and you don't want to tell anyone they're bluer than usual and I know I'm supposed to be nicer to you."

"I thought you were mad," she said, taking another step back. "You didn't kiss back."

"You might have had more back if you had warned me. It was a really big surprise and I'm not good at those. Maybe if I had known it was coming something else would have happened." He shrugged. "The more you surprise me that more I think, and I don't think you're supposed to think when you're kissing. It helps when I'm saving the world, though. It's only when I get the chance to think and it doesn't really involve me that I do stuff without thinking."

She glared. "I gave loads of signs! We were talking about mating and dating! How didn't you know?"

"I don't know. It didn't have the right atmosphere, I guess. If you ever kissed me, it doesn't seem like it'd be from an experiment. Well, an experiment to shut me up, maybe, but not any other kind. Sorry if I didn't kiss right. We can try again tomorrow if you want. Yup, in twenty four hours we can-Mew! Misty, we need to go get Pikachu so you can translate the story of what's been going on, okay? It needs to happen now before the day ends. Sound good?"

"I'm a little broken up over the kiss," she snapped, crossing her arms.

He glanced at his watch. "It's two. I'd give you ten hours before the grudge goes away. In fact, I could push you down a flight of stairs and you'd still probably lose that grudge at exactly twelve o' clock tomorrow morning. But, Misty, this is really, really important. I really need you to come find Pikachu with me and translate for me. It won't make any sense and it won't matter in ten hours. Will you do it?"

"It's obvious I'm not going to get anything from you. An explanation is better than nothing," she growled.

He stepped into the hall and shouted for her, only to glance down and found Pikachu grinning up at him rather cheekily. A roll of his eyes and she had darted to the bed, sitting proudly with her ears straight in the air. She had been eavesdropping outside the door, and since she hadn't expected anything to happen she was thrilled that the two had gone as far as they did. Granted, her master had been a dumbass again, but doing nothing during a kiss was a lot better than screaming about cooties.

Without checking to see if Misty would translate (which the redhead did), Pikachu dove into what she had been trying to say for the past four days. (Legendaries, powerful ones, three of them. They're out of the Sinnoh regions and I don't really know why they're here, except to screw with you, Ash. I don't know how well you remember them, but they're the lake ones. The stories I was always told said they controlled the three that put us above plants – emotion, knowledge and will. There's plenty of stories about them manipulating people who cross them the wrong way.)

"But I didn't cross them," Ash said when she finished translating.

(Doesn't matter. Some stories say just laying eyes on them or accidentally touching them would send them into a rage. Ash, there might not even be a way to stop this. This could be a curse placed on either you or Misty, maybe even Brock or Dawn or your mother. There's no real way to know. The problem is we're dealing with Legendaries that I don't know all that much about. You'll need a pokémon from Sinnoh if you want a better story.)

"Dawn's got pokémon from Sinnoh. They'll probably have an idea, especially if they're big enough to still be in your Legends over here."

"Curse?" Misty remarked with a snort. "Please, Ash, I doubt you're being cursed. It's probably all in your head. Every time scientific research has been done in these areas there's been no conclusive evidence. It's generally all in their heads and two events occurring doesn't mean that one cause the other. Tell me what you think is going on and I'll tell you if there's any chance at all that it could be the cause of any known pokémon attack."

He shook his head. "This version of you would never believe me. The regular version of you has a hard enough time."

"Ash, I believe anything as long as it's supported by-"

"Why do you care so much?" he groaned. "Can't you just let some things be mysterious and exciting and unexplainable? Can't you carry around good luck charms like you used to? Maybe you can believe in fairies or something you know can't exist but you believe it anyway? Something illogical and irrational and something to make you like a normal person. Not everything has to be researched. Why do you care if it's been tested in a laboratory?"

"I care because how can I believe something so unscientific?"

"Because it's happening!" he cried, throwing his arms up. "I'm sick of having to prove everything to everyone! Can't you just believe me when I tell, you that it's happening? Do I have to get drilled on everything? It'd be so much easier if none of you questioned or cared and just nodded along. Mew, I wish you didn't care!"

A moment later, the words clicked in his brain and he fell to his knees with a loud, "Arceus damn it!" Pikachu, always the helpful one, leapt to the bed and dragged a pillow off the side. It dropped onto his head, and a second later he had grabbed it, pressing it hard into his face and screaming with all the strength he could, though he was sure smart Misty would probably be thinking up a way to test his abnormal behavior.

It wasn't even sunset and he'd managed to screw up again. One step forward, two steps back.

Oh, how much do you all hate me for that kiss? The good news is there will definitely be more of them, and they all won't suck as bad as this. Ash'll get the hang of it soon, I promise.

This chapter is also eight hundred words shorter than the average chapter. I hope you don't mind, and somehow I doubt anyone will.

Weekly Musings: Has anyone else noticed the freaking weird way Ash sleeps? And they've never even changed it. He sleeps on his back with his arms behind his head. Honestly, I've never met anyone who sleeps like that. Ever. It's weird.

Has anyone else ever noticed the more time Ash has to think, the less he thinks? Look at the first pokémon movie. While all the pokémon were fighting each other for quite some time, he had loads of time to think. Did he come up with an ingenious strategy? No. He ran out and got zapped. Let's look at things like his battle with Fantina. Did he have a lot of time to think? Not really. He only had a few seconds before she finished him off. What does he come up with? A great strategy. The boy is only intelligent under pressure.

I apologize that fanfiction comes after school, but I shouldn't have to apologize that it comes after Batman. You should all know that fanfiction comes after Batman.